Reports from Cuban exile sources in Miami last night said that the main force which had invaded Cuba had been wiped out or dispersed. A handful of rebels had escaped to the Escambray mountains to fight on as guerrillas.

All communications between rebel forces in Cuba and their general headquarters outside the country had ceased at 9 30 p.m. (BST). The last message, it was said, came when the commander of an offshore supply ship asked the rebel commander ashore : "Do you want me to evacuate you ? " The reply was : "I will never leave this country." The exchange was relayed to rebel leaders by way of a third country.

It was understood that Dr Castro's forces began deploying jets, tanks and artillery-all from Communist countries-on Tuesday, and the invaders despaired of victory. A strike by the rebel air force failed to halt them. The Castro regime announced that it shot down nine in three days.

The first stage

Earlier in the day a communiqué from the Cuban Revolutionary Council, headed by Dr Cardona, gave this account of the position :

"In spite of continuous attacks by Soviet MiGs, heavy tanks and artillery forces, the Revolutionary Command has completed the planned first stage of their military operation in the South of Cuba.

"This phase involved the successful establishment of contact with guerrilla groups in the Escambray mountains. Numerous elements of forces from the Cochinos Bay area (south-east of Havana) have completed a movement north of Cienfuegos from which they will be able to reinforce the patriots already fighting in the mountains.

"It can also be revealed that additional guerrilla units have infiltrated Central Mantanzas province. The heroic action of the small holding force which resisted Soviet tanks, artillery, and aircraft during the last 20 hours made this result possible."

A spokesman for the exiles in Miami said that one rebel unit in the Cochinos Bay area had been "caught in a cross-fire from heavy tanks and pinned down, but is fighting heroically." It had been under air attack since early this morning. "There is terrible fighting going on," he said.

"Proof" against US

A Cuban Government communiqué, claiming that four insurgent planes had been shot down yesterday in Mantanzas province, said that one of them had been piloted by an American, Leo Francis Bell, of Boston, who was killed.

Later, in the United Nations Assembly's Political Committee, Senor Roa, the Cuban representative, said that this plane had come from a United States base. "The US pilot dropped a number of bombs on the civilian population and military objectives," he added. "His body is in possession of the Cuban authorities. This is another flagrant proof of US aggression."

The Cuban Government issued a communiqué saying that victory was expected within a matter of hours.

Executions and arrests

Overnight there was a bombing and strafing attack on Havana, according to the Cuban Government radio, which also reported that there had been firing during the night near the naval base of Playa de Guanabo, 25 miles east of the capital.

Havana Radio reported that two Americans and seven Cubans were executed by Castro firing squads at dawn yesterday. And unofficial reports said that 20 other Americans and more than a thousand Cubans, including 200 Catholic priests, had been arrested in Havana during the day. Those detained included several US journalists.

The two Americans executed were Howard Anderson and Angus McNair, both of whom had been under arrest for some weeks. Anderson, who ran a chain of petrol stations in Cuba, was charged with unspecified anti-Government activities, and McNair was accused of trying to land a boatload of arms in Pinar del Rio.

In Washington it was announced that President Kennedy had postponed plans to join the navy in exercises off Florida at the weekend. Later the Navy said the exercise had been cancelled.-Reuter, British United Press, and Associated Press.

British subjects

In the House of Lords yesterday, Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary, said that four British subjects, including a woman, had been arrested in Cuba. The British Ambassador had reported that no harm had come to other British subjects there.

The four were later named as Mr Flitcroft, of the embassy's information Office: Mr Oxley, a freelance photographer who was freed but rearrested: Mrs Soler: and Mr O'Brien, a business man from Northern Ireland, working in Havana. Mrs Soler was later released.